


Two Fathers

by FrickinAngel



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-09 06:10:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20848784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrickinAngel/pseuds/FrickinAngel
Summary: Shaun watches his father from afar and wonders what will happen if they ever meet?





	1. My sweet, sweet boy

**Author's Note:**

> I've often wondered what Shaun would think about his father before he met him. Would he be frightened? Excited? What do you think?

How long he had imagined their reunion. Imagined his father breaking down and crying, wrapping his arms around him in a long-anticipated loving embrace. "My boy," he would cry into Shaun's shoulder. "My sweet, sweet boy!" 

Shaun knew just what his father looked like. The Institute had cameras everywhere. The Commonwealth dwellers had no idea that the Institute could watch literally everything they did. He had watched his progress since he woke up in Vault 111. Watched him dispatch radroaches and Glowing Ones, mercenaries and even his beloved Synths. 

Despite all of the killing, as far as Shaun could tell, his father was a just and caring man, just as he had always imagined. Calvin Dunning. A strong name. A leader's name, Shaun thought. His voice was deep and resonant, and people seemed to want to help him. 

Shaun had tried to model himself after his father. At least as much as he could. He tried to be noble, thoughtful and kind, but compassion didn't come naturally to him, having been raised by scientists and synths. 

He had never met him of course. Oh, there were many ways he could've arranged a meeting. But he was afraid. Afraid to meet the man who had helped create him. 

Even knowing his father was searching for him, Shaun wasn't sure he could understand who his son had become. He had grown from the baby his father still pined for to become the very face of evil everyone in the Commonwealth blamed their troubles on. 

Someone disappeared? Well, it couldn't be that they were dodging debt or escaping a failed marriage. No, surely it was the Institute who took them and experimented on them. Grandma was found inexplicably dead in her bed? Couldn't just be old age or the rigors of living in a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland! No, somehow the Institute was behind it. The Institute poisoned her. The Institute wanted her dead because she knew something. . . 

Damn it all! Every moment his father had spent in the Commonwealth since waking from Cryostasis, he had been indoctrinated to hate and fear the very place and people that had saved Shaun's life. The people Shaun loved so deeply. So deeply that he had agreed to accept the Directorship of the Institute. 

They called him Father, he reflected. Because they had used his unsullied DNA to complete work on the third generation Synths. He had even helped to develop the two ill-fated but brilliant prototype synths, DiMA and Nick Valentine who were now lost to the Institute. And one couldn't forget the Coursers, brutal and intelligent killing machines. Friedrich Nietzsche would've found them indistinguishable from his race of Supermen. 

No, Shaun couldn't believe his father could ever forgive him for being the face of the hated Institute. And all Shaun wanted was to save humanity. From itself. . . To raise these pathetic creatures up from the irradiated squalor they lived in and make their lives better. As the Institute had done for him. 

He sank back in his chair and stared at the screen in front of him. His father crept across a huge expanse of wasteland, trying not to attract the notice of the nesting Deathclaw not two hundred feet away. He crouched behind a disabled Sentrybot. The disgusting animal companion slunk along beside him, clearly terrified. Dogmeat. . . What kind of name was that? Shaun sighed. What did it matter if his father died? Was there any hope of him forgiving his son? He shook his head, weighing the options. 

He had shown himself time and again to be forgiving and kind. He had gone out of his way to help his fellow human beings, even when it pulled him from his search to find his "baby" son. Perhaps there was a chance. If Shaun could convince him of all the good the Institute wanted to accomplish in the world. 

But what if all his father wanted to do was destroy them. Of course the Institute had done terrible things in their quest for knowledge and advancement. They had truly taken people to experiment on, as so many people in the Commonwealth feared. They had replaced citizens with exact replica synths, to perform other experiments. But all in the interests of making this broken world a better place. If only his father could understand. . . 

Shaun clenched one fist and pounded the soft arm of his chair, hissing breath between his teeth. "Damn! Damn! Damn!" If only he could know for sure. Well, if his father survived the Wasteland and the Commonwealth, didn't die of radiation poisoning, wasn't killed by mercenaries or rogue synths or simple spoiled food or poisoned water. . . At least he had avoided the Deathclaw, Shaun saw. 

Calvin Dunning and Dogmeat were now marching confidently toward a settlement called Sanctuary, in his quest to find his "baby". What would he think when he found out his "baby" was over 150 years old? The sun was low in the sky, casting a golden glow around them and the dust kicked up by their travel. Calvin swung his pack over one shoulder, leaned down to pat his disgusting animal and began to whistle tunelessly. 

Shaun cursed under his breath, grimacing. He half-hoped his father would make it far enough to figure out how to enter the Institute. Then they would see what would happen. Until then, he would continue to watch. . . 

To be continued. . .


	2. “I’m a woman baby, can’t you tell?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Calvin Dunning stops in Goodneighbor on his way to Diamond City and meets up with KL-E-O, the Assaultron.

Calvin rolled over onto his back, straightening out the oil-stained sheets around him. The sun poured in through the dirty window of his room in the Hotel Rexford. The light was so buttery and warm it reminded him of the days before the Great War. 

He closed his eyes, letting the sun filter through his eyelids and remembered lazing in bed on a Saturday morning, hearing Codsworth putter around the kitchen as he got breakfast for them and muttered about waxing the kitchen floor. Baby Shaun babbled happily in his crib across the hall, probably watching the little rocket ship mobile he loved so much. His wife. . . 

Oh God, his wife! Calvin sighed and swiped at his eyes, put his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. 

He still couldn’t believe they’d killed her. Shot her like a dog to get to poor little baby Shaun. What kind of person does that, he wondered? Couldn’t they have just put her back to sleep, for God’s sake? But no, they’d shot her in the face. 

The whole thing had been like the worst nightmare he’d ever had. From waking up to find something horribly wrong with his wife’s corpse—it was like she had mummified somehow since they shot her. . . He had assumed something had been in the bullets they used to age the corpse so. But after he finally made it outside. . . 

“Sweet Jesus,” he breathed. It had been such a shock to see the world he had loved, the green and verdant wooded part of Massachusetts he had lived in nothing but an irradiated desert full of ruined homes, twisted light poles and pocked street signs. Why, his legs had sagged and he had nearly lost his balance, seeing the ruin around him as he stood outside Vault 111. Not a single bird chirped anymore. They must’ve all died in the explosions.

It made him sick to think of all the people who’d been killed in the blasts during the Great War. The only thing that had kept him going since then was knowing that he had to find baby Shaun. It killed him to think about how terrified the boy must’ve been without his parents. 

Would a baby under one even remember him? He doubted it. He still had no idea when they took Shaun. It was all so confusing. He knew it had been a lot longer than he thought. He hoped that someone here in Goodneighbor would be able to help him figure out who had taken Shaun and where they had gone. What had they even been feeding him in this godforsaken hell they called the world these days? Cram? 

Calvin laughed briefly, remembering how much baby Shaun had loved Dandyboy Apples. 

One of the shopkeepers had told him about an old detective who lived in some place called Diamond City. He was rumored to be the very best. Surely a detective could help him find his son? Maybe he could buy him a Nuka Cola and pick his brain.

Dogmeat whined and snuffled at the door, wanting to be let in. Calvin had left him in the hall last night and forgotten to let him in after. . . He sat up and looked around. Was it really possible? Maybe it had been a dream?

He smiled as he remembered the sultry robot voice saying, “Everything here is guaranteed to injure, maim or kill at your discretion. Except me. I only kill when I want to.” KL-E-O the Assaultron who ran the store Kill or Be Killed was one hot ticket. 

From the minute he met her, KL-E-O had made it clear she had a thing for him, flirting up a storm. “I’m a woman, baby. Can’t you tell?” 

What had finally done it was when she said, “Come back when you’re ready to go all the way.” 

He had gotten some lunch from a street vendor—crispy squirrel bits, which he’d really come around to liking—and couldn’t get the Assaultron’s voice out of his head. Guess it’s been a long time, old boy, Calvin thought wrily. 

She had told him what time she got off and where he could find her after work. Who wouldn’t want a little comfort in this shitty world, he thought? There was nothing to be ashamed of in what they’d done. 

He had met up with her in The Third Rail, where she was drinking a motor oil. He bought an atomic cocktail and they flirted some more, laughing as he got more and more tipsy. And finally, she put one cool hand on his leg and suggested going back to his room. 

Calvin shook his head, remembering. No matter how she was built, or what she was made of, that KL-E-O was all woman. When he was a lad, they had joked about girls who could suck the chrome off a tailpipe, but KL-E-O had done things he’d never heard of before. . . He lifted up the covers and checked to make sure all the important parts were still there, and chuckled. 

He hoped he’d made her feel half as good as she had made him feel. He hoped he wouldn’t be charged for the oil all over the sheets. But he probably wasn’t the first guy KL-E-O had rolled around in the sack with. 

She had left sometime in the middle of the night—after all, robots don’t technically need to sleep—and had left poor Dogmeat to sleep in the hall. Calvin himself had passed out and slept like a rock the entire night after some great robot sex. 

He got up, showered quickly, slid on his PipBoy and mapped out the best route to Diamond City. Like the rest of the Commonwealth so far, it didn’t seem that there would be any easy way. Between Bloatflies, bloodbugs and radroaches, Yao Guai, radstags and wild mongrels, there was a lot to watch out for on the roads. One of the ghouls in the bar had said he’d have to contend with a gang of Super Mutants along the way. He’d better load up on ammo and scram. 

When he was on the second floor of KL-E-O’s shop yesterday he’d found a holodisk called “Join the Railroad”. Some broad named Desdemona was asking people to join her cockamamie group to help free the damned Synths! Everyone knew Synths were bad news. 

He’d already encountered his fair share on the road from Vault 111. They stalked around with their creepy manner, their skeletal faces searching everywhere for movement, brandishing those laser rifles. 

But Desdemona claimed they were slaves to the Institute. That seemed flat out ridiculous, of course. The ones he’d seen sure didn’t seem very downtrodden. Just violent as hell. . . But it wouldn’t hurt to get in touch with this Railroad and see what they were really about. Maybe they’d have some connection to Shaun. What if the Institute had taken him? He guessed if the Railroad scratched his back, he could scratch theirs. 

But first, on to Diamond City to find that detective—Bill or Dick or Nick Vally-something. . . Maybe he should say goodbye to KL-E-O after breakfast though. What was the protocol for robotic one night stands, anyway?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wouldn’t you be lonely after 200 years? ;-)


	3. Envy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shaun reflects on the lacking education of his childhood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d love to hear where you think this piece should or is going to go! I’ve been thinking about writing about Shaun and his father since I first played FO4 several years ago. Thanks for reading!

When Shaun was very young, he played on the great elevator for hours at a time, and commanded Generation 2 synths to play hide-and-seek with him among the plants in Bioscience and Advanced Systems Labs. The Synths never quite understood the game, which he initially found humorous and felt superior about until he grew old enough to realize that he had no true friends, only robots cleverly disguised to look humanoid. At the end of the day, it wasn't very fun to know that your "friends" were only following orders. 

Being quite bright, he had daily lessons from the directors of each Laboratory , and was thereafter expected to study on his own about Bioscience, genetics, atomic science, robotics and Advanced Systems, where he learned about developing new and better weaponry. His favorite subject was always robotics. He was awkward and didn’t understand humans all that well. 

Of all of his teachers, he always liked Madison Li best. She was warmer and more genuine than many of the other scientists, possibly because she was from the Commonwealth originally and hadn't grown up in the Institute. He had a horror of the Commonwealth and the mutated animals and humans that lived there and often pestered her with questions about what her life had been like before she came to the Institute. 

She was vague in her answers, saying only that the Institute was a wonderful place to be, especially as a scientist. That, he could understand. Trying to achieve any results as a scientist in the irradiated wilderness of the Commonwealth wasteland would be difficult at best, if not impossible. The Institute had vast resources and could get anything it needed to study and learn from. He was proud to be a part of it and felt lucky to have been chosen by them as a baby. 

But pride only goes so far. Shaun was a lonely child. He nagged his teachers for more time, asking them unnecessary questions to have more human contact until he realized that while they liked him, he was far more of an annoyance than a welcome respite from their jobs. Like everyone else there, his teachers were deeply passionate about the mission of the Institute and he was expected to learn everything they taught and ultimately find the thing that moved him most to further the Institute. 

A voracious reader, he often curled up on the padded benches near the elevator, sat under the banana trees by the Bioscience Lab. He was allowed to read anything he wished on his tablet, and he tore through the classics. It was very hard to understand life in Historical Times. There were so many more animals in the past, and of course, birds. As far as he knew, all birds had been made extinct in the Great War. He had seen ancient vids of what they were like, but couldn’t truly imagine what their purpose or need had been in the world. It seemed that all they had done was chirp and fly about a lot. Perhaps the world was better off without them. 

People had had too much freedom, he felt, when he read novels. They were always falling in love, whatever that meant, and having their feelings hurt over one thing or another. War and enemies he understood. Knowing how the Institute had fought (and continued to fight) for Scientific Freedom and supremacy, he knew war was a good thing. Oh, he knew that it had caused the Wasteland, but as he never needed to leave the Institute to have a wonderful life, he reasoned that it had been worth the devastation above. The Institute had great plans to expand ever downward, and he was excited to see where they could take their civilization. 

There was mystery and intrigue in the Institute as well. Many times he sat next to the entrance to the off-limits FEV Lab, which was shrouded in mystery and therefore much more exciting to his growing mind. He had overheard the Bioscientists talking about the Forced Evolutionary Virus they had engineered, but couldn’t figure out what it was for from their conversations. They had always gotten quiet when they noticed him eavesdropping. As a result, he always hoped for a glimpse inside the FEV Lab, but he never seemed to be there at the right time. Whatever they did in there, it seemed that it never left through the front door. 

When he was ten, they were finally able to complete the process that used his DNA to create the Generation 3 Synths, that were for all intents and purposes, indistinct from true humans. Their voices were human, their skin, warm and pliant, down to the soft, downy hairs on their arms and the realistic eyes that were actually only sophisticated cameras. It was unsettling at first, but he was fiercely proud that they all carried an important bit of him within them. 

At first, everyone jokingly called him "Father" because of his role in the Generation 3 development, but the name stuck, and the residents of the Institute truly revered and even idolized him. Whenever he encountered the Generation 3 Synths, even now, they were often silent and respectful of him, seeming almost in awe. 

Once again. he mistook this reverence and awe as a type of friendship, because people (and Synths) came across as so deferential and friendly to him. But as the years passed and he grew up, he came to realize that he had been alone his entire life. He truly had no idea what a friendship meant. 

Now, he couldn’t stop watching his father navigate the Commonwealth; he had begun to see what he had missed his entire life. He had no idea how to interact with humans on a warm, genuine level the way Calvin Dunning did. Calvin was easygoing and kind and people obviously liked him and wanted to be his friend. Shaun envied his ease on a deep level. He was 150 years old and had no idea how to make a friend. He was emotionally stunted and it sickened him. With all of the things his teachers had taught him, being comfortable with his fellow human beings was not one of them. 

Perhaps if his father made it to the Institute, he could teach him.


	4. A Synth Darkly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Calvin Dunning agrees to help find the detective, Nick Valentine.

Calvin looked around the detective's shabby office: dented filing cabinets thickly layered with dust and a cluttered desk with a long-dead plant on it. It seemed empty, but Calvin shouted a hello from the open doorway and a pretty brunette woman popped out of a side room looking worried. She asked if he'd seen Valentine. "That's actually the very reason I came in here." Calvin raised one eyebrow at her. 

The brunette's face relaxed in relief. "So you know where he is?"

"Oh. . . No, I don't," Calvin said. "What I meant was I wanted to see him myself. My name's Calvin Dunning and I'm looking for my--" 

The brunette frowned. "Well my name's Ellie Perkins and you're out of luck, pal. If you wanna know the truth, he's missing."

Calvin sighed. Didn't it just figure? "How long has it been?" 

She shook her head, distracted as she rifled through a pile of folders on the desk. "At least a couple of days, maybe longer. He. . ." she looked up at him now, and her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. "Sometimes he goes off on jobs, know what I mean?" 

Calvin nodded. He really knew nothing at all about detectives, but it was clear she needed someone to listen. "So, why is this time any different?" he asked.

"Well, I would've known if he was going off on a job, see? He always tells me when he has a case. Even if it happens quick, he at least drops me a note on the desk. . ." She gestured to the messy desktop with one hand, and Calvin wondered briefly how she would actually find a note if Valentine had left one. He decided not to mention that. 

"Is there anyone who can help you find him?" Calvin asked, a dismal feeling creeping into his stomach. 

She put her hands down flat on the desk and leaned toward him, her face serious and grim. "I think I might be lookin' at him, honestly. . . Can you help me find Nicky, Mister?" 

And that was how he'd ended up outside the Park Street Station by Boston Common at two minutes past stupid o'clock. It was the last place Ellie remembered him mentioning. Park Street was an underground station with rusted blue double doors at the rear end of a short tan brick alcove with only one flickering lamp to light it. Why did he always have to have a soft spot for a dame in trouble? 

He hated these underground stations. They were inevitably riddled with radroaches and ghouls. He stood outside in the flickering light, and listened to the sounds of the night around him. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the soft pops of gunfire, and even fainter, shouts. Super Mutants maybe? He had purposely avoided Boston Common pond because it was rumored that an unusually large and lethal Super Mutant lived there. People called it Swan for some reason. . . Maybe the name would make sense if he saw it, but he planned on avoiding it as long as he could. 

He looked at the double doors again and sighed. Oh well, nothing for it but to go in and look for the damned detective. The darkness closed around him like wet sand as the doors clicked shut behind him. It may have been dark, but it was far from silent. Ancient subway announcements constantly cycled through the P.A. system. "For your safety, please do not tamper with Protectron Stewards." 

Protectron stewards were the least of his troubles. He crept through the silver turnstile and down a dark hallway, trying to avoid any rubble and stay as quiet as he could. Within two minutes, a glowing radroach dropped from the ceiling to land a couple of feet in front of him, its feelers wiggling back and forth as it assessed him. He unholstered his gun and shot it, shaking his head. Shit. . . Now anything else that was in the tunnels would probably hear him and come to investigate. 

He continued along the tiled hallway, his boots scuffing through dirt, broken tile and God only knew what else. "Keep it clean, Boston! Please dispose of food waste in the marked receptacles." Riiiight. . . 

He snuck by a ghoul that looked more like a pile of dirty rags, but the rancid smell that rose from it belied its true nature. Fortunately for both of them, it didn't wake up. Live and let live, he always said. "Passing through cars is prohibited. . ."

Finally, he got to the track area and peered out from behind a large, tiled post. "To avoid delays, do not hold the doors. . ." Sure enough, there were some lowlife gangsters holed up in an alcove just beyond both tracks, cooking a Mole Rat on a makeshift spit. He hated that the meaty smell made his mouth water, knowing how vile Mole Rats were. 

If he was lucky, he just might be able to sneak past them and avoid a--"Well, ain't THIS a surprise!" a voice said beside him from the dark. Almost immediately, there was a loud POP and he felt the breeze as a bullet whizzed by his right cheek. He spun around and zeroed in on the jerk, raising his gun and aiming as he did so, pulled the trigger and missed. He shot again and a big galoot in camo fatigues fell on his side, dead, or dying. 

"Hey, what was that?" someone called from across the tracks. Calvin heard guns being cocked and feet scuffling and his heart sank. He wished it didn't have to be this way, but apparently, in this brave new world, the rule was always kill or be killed. Everyone was always spoiling for a fight. Well, at least he knew how to do that. 

"Glance it? Don't chance it! Report suspicious activity immediately," the subway announcer's voice said, just as a hail of bullets rained around him. 

He hauled ass beside the tracks, crouched and then decided to jump right onto the tracks. Hopefully the fated third rail wasn't live after two hundred years. He avoided it in any case, along with the puddles of questionable oily "water" in between the moldering railroad ties. He ducked down and ran as fast as he could as the thugs with guns ran after him, shooting and bellowing. "Get back here, asshat!" Yeah, riiiight. . . I'll be right there, he thought and had to suppress a hysterical bubble of laughter. 

He looked back over his shoulder to see where his pursuers were, ran smack into a wall and fell back onto his ass with a thud. The thugs hadn't figured out that he'd jumped down onto the tracks apparently. He got up, rubbed his head and shook it off. He'd actually run into a door, which he opened and went through cautiously. The subway announcer faded away with a last, "Passing through cars is prohibited!"

There were red flood lights interspersed along the hall here, but no thugs in evidence. Calvin breathed a sigh of relief and continued on, hoping this was the right direction. Were there any right directions in the Commonwealth anymore, he wondered? 

Soon, he snuck past a room full of gangsters all talking about baiting Super Mutants. He wound his way through a snarl of rooms and halls, dispatching radroaches and two Mole Rats in quick succession, and finally he came to a vault entrance. Vault 114 it read. 

Calvin poked around on his PipBoy and managed to open the vault door with beeps and much grinding. Once again, he hoped this didn't attract the wrong kind of attention. He began the slow crawl through the Vault, dispatching triggermen and the occasional radroach as he went. "Seriously, how do you get yourself into these situations, Dunning?" he asked himself.

After what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, he killed one last triggerman, and used the terminal on the desk nearby to open a locked door nearby. "Well, what have we here?" a voice asked. 

Leaning against a wall of the room was one of the strangest sights Calvin Dunning had seen since awakening in Vault 111: A man in antique detective garb; tan trenchcoat, wingtip shoes and a real fedora hat. He turned to look Calvin square in the face and that's when things went sideways. The detective had a half-human, half-synth face. One eye glowed green in the dim room. Calvin inhaled sharply, shocked. 

"Don't be quick to judge," Nick Valentine said. "Feels like there's a cliche in here somewhere. . ." 

"What the. . . ?" Calvin muttered.


End file.
